Summary. A protective order is available quickly, on limited evidence, and it can order a person out of their home, away from their children, and out of possession of their firearms within a day of the petition being filed. That combination of speed and consequence means the procedure is structured in two stages: an ex parte temporary order issued on the petitioner's affidavit alone, followed within days or weeks by a full hearing at which the respondent appears and contests. The relief available reaches well beyond a stay-away directive, and the federal full faith and credit provisions make an order entered in one state enforceable nationwide. This guide covers who qualifies, what relief to request, how to prepare and present the case, the firearm and immigration consequences, and how enforcement, modification, and renewal work.

A protective order is one of the few civil remedies available within hours, on one party's sworn statement, that can remove a person from their home. That is the point — the harm it addresses does not wait for a scheduling order — and it is also why the procedure is built around a temporary order followed promptly by a real hearing.

Counsel arrives at these cases from either side and frequently under time pressure. What follows is the structure.

Who qualifies

Statutes vary and most states have several distinct order types.

Domestic violence protective orders are the most common and generally require a qualifying relationship: current or former spouses, persons who live or lived together, persons who have a child in common, persons in or formerly in a dating relationship, and family members by blood or marriage. States differ, particularly on dating relationships and on same-household roommates.

Civil harassment or stalking orders are available where no qualifying relationship exists — a neighbor, a coworker, a stranger. The conduct standard is usually higher: a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress and that serves no legitimate purpose.

Elder or vulnerable adult abuse orders, addressing physical abuse, neglect, isolation, and financial exploitation, which the domestic violence statutes frequently do not reach.

Workplace violence orders, sought by an employer on behalf of an employee.

School and campus orders in several states.

Criminal protective orders, entered as a condition of bail or of a sentence in a criminal case, which run in parallel and are enforced separately.

The conduct required. Typically physical abuse or the threat of it, sexual assault, stalking, harassment, or placing a person in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury. Several states expressly include coercive control — a pattern of behavior that unreasonably interferes with a person's free will and personal liberty, including isolation, financial control, and monitoring — and this is the most significant recent expansion in the field.

The two-stage procedure

The ex parte temporary order

Filed on a petition with a sworn affidavit, heard the same day or the next, without notice to the respondent.

The standard is generally immediate and present danger, or reasonable proof of past abuse plus a risk of further harm. Because the respondent is absent, the order is temporary — commonly ten to twenty-one days — and a hearing is set.

Filing is free in domestic violence cases under 34 U.S.C. § 12291 and related conditions on federal funding; states may not charge filing, service, or certification fees.

Self-represented petitioners are the norm, and courts maintain forms and, frequently, advocates to assist.

The hearing

Both parties appear. The respondent is entitled to notice, to counsel, to testify, to present evidence, and to cross-examine.

The standard is generally a preponderance of the evidence, and the resulting order runs for a fixed term — one year, two years, five years, or in some states permanently — with provision for renewal.

This is a real evidentiary hearing and it is frequently the only one either party gets. Findings made here can bind in a subsequent custody case, be used in a criminal prosecution, and carry consequences for employment, licensure, immigration status, and firearm rights.

The relief available

Counsel should request everything the facts support. Courts grant what is asked for and rarely more.

  • No contact: no contact in person, by telephone, by text, by email, through social media, or through third parties. The third-party provision matters and is often omitted.
  • Stay away from the residence, workplace, school, children's school and daycare, and other specified locations, by a stated distance.
  • Exclusive possession of the residence, regardless of whose name is on the lease or deed. This is available in most domestic violence statutes and is frequently the most important relief.
  • Temporary custody and a parenting schedule, including supervised or suspended visitation.
  • Temporary child support and spousal support in many states.
  • Possession of personal property and vehicles, and a civil standby — a law enforcement escort — to retrieve belongings.
  • Firearm surrender, discussed below.
  • Pet custody, now expressly available in a majority of states.
  • Restrictions on the respondent's communications about the petitioner, and prohibitions on tracking, surveillance, and access to the petitioner's accounts and devices.
  • Address confidentiality, and sealing of the petitioner's address in the court file. Most states operate an address confidentiality program providing a substitute address.
  • Counseling or batterer intervention program attendance.
  • Payment of costs, attorney's fees, medical expenses, and property damage.
  • Continuation of insurance and utilities, and prohibition on cancelling coverage or disposing of property.

Firearms

The most consequential collateral consequence, and the area with the most recent legal movement.

Federal law. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) prohibits possession of a firearm by a person subject to a qualifying protective order — one issued after notice and an opportunity to be heard, restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child, and including either a finding of a credible threat or an express prohibition on the use of force. The ex parte order does not qualify; the post-hearing order does, if it contains the required elements. Counsel should ensure the order includes the necessary findings and language, because an order that omits them does not trigger the federal prohibition.

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) prohibits possession by a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 extended it to dating partners.

United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), upheld § 922(g)(8) against a Second Amendment challenge, holding that an individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. This resolved substantial uncertainty following New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022).

State law frequently goes further, requiring surrender of firearms — to law enforcement, a licensed dealer, or in some states a qualified third party — within a short period, with proof of compliance filed with the court. Several states permit ex parte surrender orders. Extreme risk protection orders, available in a growing number of states, provide a separate mechanism.

Practical guidance for a petitioner: ask specifically about firearms in the intake, describe them in the petition, and request surrender with a compliance deadline and a proof-of-surrender requirement. For a respondent: comply immediately and document it; possession after a qualifying order is a federal felony, and it is prosecuted.

Preparing the petition

The affidavit is the case at the ex parte stage and it frames everything after.

Write it chronologically and specifically. Dates, locations, what was said, what was done, injuries, and who witnessed it. "He has been abusive for years" establishes nothing. "On March 3 at approximately 9 p.m., in the kitchen of our home, he grabbed my left arm, pushed me against the counter, and said he would kill me if I called anyone. I had bruises on my arm for a week and photographed them on March 5" establishes a great deal.

Lead with the most recent and most serious incident, then provide the pattern.

Include the escalation. Courts assess future risk, and the factors that predict it are documented: strangulation, threats to kill, threats involving weapons, threats of suicide, stalking, sexual assault, escalating frequency, violence during pregnancy, recent separation, and threats against children or pets.

Attach the evidence. Photographs of injuries and damage, text messages and voicemails, emails, social media posts, police reports, medical records, and prior orders. Screenshots should show the sender, the date, and the time.

Address the specific relief requested with facts supporting each item — why exclusive possession is needed, why supervised visitation, which firearms exist.

Be complete about prior proceedings. Existing custody orders, pending divorce, prior protective orders, and any criminal case. Courts must know, and omissions damage credibility.

Evidence at the hearing

Digital evidence dominates these cases and must be authenticated. Under Fed. R. Evid. 901 and state analogues, testimony from a person with knowledge that the exhibit is what it purports to be is generally sufficient; distinctive characteristics under Rule 901(b)(4) — the phone number, the account, the content only that person would know — support it. Preserve the originals on the device; do not delete after screenshotting.

Testimony. Prepare the client to testify chronologically, in plain language, without characterization. The most credible testimony is specific and unembellished, and clients who feel they must persuade tend to overstate, which is what cross-examination exploits.

Witnesses. Neighbors, family, coworkers, and responding officers. Medical and law enforcement records frequently come in under the business records and public records exceptions.

Expert testimony on the dynamics of abuse, where the respondent argues that the petitioner's delay in reporting or continued contact undermines the claim.

The respondent's evidence. Alibi, context, the petitioner's own communications, prior inconsistent statements, and — where applicable — that the petitioner is seeking advantage in a custody dispute. Courts hear that argument constantly and are appropriately skeptical of it, but where the record supports it, it matters.

Mutual orders. Most statutes prohibit issuing a mutual order absent a separate petition and separate findings, because mutual orders undermine enforcement and are frequently the product of pressure on the petitioner. Do not agree to one casually.

After entry

Service and registration

The order must be served on the respondent to be enforceable against them, generally by law enforcement without charge. Confirm proof of service is filed.

The order is entered into state and federal databases, including the NCIC Protection Order File, which is how an officer in another state confirms it.

Full faith and credit

18 U.S.C. § 2265, enacted as part of the Violence Against Women Act, requires every state, tribe, and territory to enforce a protection order issued by another as if it were its own, provided the issuing court had jurisdiction and the respondent received notice and an opportunity to be heard — with an exception for ex parte orders, which are enforceable if the respondent received the notice and opportunity the issuing state's law requires.

Registration in the enforcing state is not required as a condition of enforcement, and § 2265(d) prohibits requiring notification to the respondent of registration. Registration is nonetheless useful practically, because it puts the order in the local database.

The Uniform Interstate Enforcement of Domestic Violence Protection Orders Act supplies parallel state procedure.

Enforcement

Violations are crimes in every state, and are frequently arrestable on probable cause without a warrant. Many states mandate arrest.

Federal crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 2261 (interstate domestic violence), § 2261A (interstate stalking), and § 2262 (interstate violation of a protection order), each carrying substantial penalties.

Civil contempt for violations of civil provisions — support, property, custody.

Practical guidance for the protected party: report every violation, even minor ones, because the pattern is what supports escalation and renewal. Keep a log with dates, times, and what happened. Preserve messages. Carry a copy of the order.

The petitioner cannot violate their own order. Only the respondent can. But a petitioner who initiates contact undermines enforcement practically and gives the respondent an argument for modification — and if contact is genuinely wanted, the answer is a motion to modify, not informal resumption.

Modification, renewal, and expiration

Either party may move to modify. A respondent seeking modification faces a high bar and should not attempt it without counsel.

Renewal before expiration is available in most states, frequently on a lower showing than the original — commonly a reasonable apprehension of future abuse, without requiring proof of a new act of violence. Several states permit permanent orders on renewal.

Diary the expiration date. An order that lapses is gone, and re-establishing one requires starting over.

Collateral consequences

Counsel on both sides must explain these before the hearing.

For the respondent:

  • Firearm prohibition, federal and state, as described above. For a law enforcement officer, a member of the military, or anyone whose employment requires a firearm, this is career-ending.
  • Employment and licensure. Professional boards, security clearances, and employers running background checks will find the order.
  • Housing. Exclusion from the residence, and difficulty renting with an order on record.
  • Custody. Findings of abuse trigger the rebuttable presumption against custody that most states now impose.
  • Immigration. A protective order is not itself a ground of removal, but a violation of the portion protecting against credible threats, repeated harassment, or bodily injury is a deportable offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(ii), and a crime of domestic violence is deportable under (E)(i). Advise a non-citizen respondent to consult immigration counsel; Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), makes advice on immigration consequences part of competent representation in the criminal context and the principle informs civil practice here.

For the petitioner:

  • Immigration relief may be available. A U visa under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U) for victims of qualifying crimes who assist law enforcement; VAWA self-petition under 8 U.S.C. § 1154(a)(1)(A)(iii) for a spouse or child of an abusive citizen or permanent resident, filed without the abuser's knowledge or participation; and battered spouse waiver of the joint filing requirement for conditional residents.
  • Housing protections. VAWA protections at 34 U.S.C. § 12491 prohibit denial or termination of federally assisted housing on the basis of being a victim, and provide for lease bifurcation and emergency transfer.
  • Employment protections. A growing number of states provide leave, accommodation, and anti-discrimination protection for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
  • Lease termination. Many states permit early termination of a residential lease by a victim, on notice and documentation.
  • Address confidentiality programs, and confidentiality of the petition address.

Practical counsel

For a petitioner's counsel or advocate:

  • Safety planning comes before the legal work. An order is a piece of paper; the plan for what happens when it is violated is what protects someone. Refer to a domestic violence advocacy organization, which does this better than any law office.
  • The most dangerous period is around separation and the filing. Say so, and plan for it.
  • Ask about firearms, strangulation, and threats to kill in every intake. These are the strongest predictors of lethality and they must appear in the petition.
  • Request everything. Exclusive possession, custody, support, firearm surrender, pets, and the civil standby.
  • Prepare for the custody case. The findings here will be used there.
  • File the fee waiver — there should be no fee at all in a domestic violence case.

For a respondent's counsel:

  • Take it seriously. Clients treat a civil order as a formality and it is not.
  • Do not contact the petitioner, and instruct the client in writing not to, including through friends and family. Third-party contact is the most common violation.
  • Advise on firearms immediately, before the hearing, and document the advice.
  • Consider whether to contest. A negotiated order without findings of abuse, agreed without admission, may protect the client's firearm rights, immigration status, and custody position far better than a contested hearing that produces findings. Where the facts are bad, this is frequently the best available outcome — but understand what a consent order does and does not avoid, because an order containing the § 922(g)(8) elements triggers the federal prohibition regardless of consent.
  • Preserve the client's own evidence before it is deleted.

Primary authority

  • 18 U.S.C. § 2265 — full faith and credit for protection orders; § 2261, § 2261A, and § 2262 — interstate domestic violence, stalking, and violation of a protection order.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) and § 922(g)(9) — firearm prohibitions for persons subject to a qualifying order and for misdemeanor domestic violence convictions, as extended by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022; § 921(a)(33) — definition of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
  • United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024) — upholding § 922(g)(8); New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) — the framework it was decided under; United States v. Hayes, 555 U.S. 415 (2009) and Voisine v. United States, 579 U.S. 686 (2016) — the scope of § 922(g)(9).
  • 34 U.S.C. § 12291 — VAWA definitions and the prohibition on fees; 34 U.S.C. § 12491 — housing protections.
  • 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U) — U nonimmigrant status; § 1154(a)(1)(A)(iii) — VAWA self-petitioning; § 1227(a)(2)(E) — deportability for crimes of domestic violence and for violation of a protection order.
  • Uniform Interstate Enforcement of Domestic Violence Protection Orders Act (2002).
  • Fed. R. Evid. 901, including 901(b)(4) — authentication of digital communications; Rules 803(4), 803(6), and 803(8) — medical, business, and public records.
  • State domestic violence, civil harassment, stalking, elder abuse, and workplace violence protective order statutes — the operative law, differing in qualifying relationships, conduct standards, available relief, duration, renewal standards, and firearm surrender procedures; state extreme risk protection order statutes; state address confidentiality programs.
  • State custody statutes creating a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody to a perpetrator of domestic violence.

The hearing, in practice

Protective order hearings are short — thirty to sixty minutes is typical, and in busy courts considerably less. That format rewards preparation and punishes improvisation.

For the petitioner.

Organize the testimony chronologically around three or four incidents, with the most recent first. Practice it once, out loud, so the client is not constructing the narrative on the stand.

Have exhibits pre-marked, in order, with copies for the court and opposing counsel. Photographs of injuries, the message thread, the police report, the medical record.

Tell the client to answer the question asked and stop. The most common failure is a client who, asked "what happened on March 3," delivers a fifteen-minute account of the entire relationship. Judges stop listening.

Prepare for the cross-examination that always comes: why did you wait, why did you contact him afterward, why is there no police report, and are you doing this because of the custody case. These questions have good answers and the client should have thought about them: fear, financial dependence, hope that it would stop, concern about the children, and the fact that a person who has been assaulted does not behave the way a stranger imagines they would.

Address delay affirmatively on direct rather than letting it emerge on cross.

For the respondent.

Do not put the client on the stand without preparation, and understand that testimony here can be used in a parallel criminal case. Where criminal charges are pending or possible, the Fifth Amendment problem is real: the client may have to choose between testifying and losing the hearing, or asserting the privilege and facing an adverse inference in this civil proceeding under Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976). Consult criminal counsel before the hearing.

Cross-examine on specifics, not on character. Inconsistencies between the affidavit and the testimony, between the testimony and the messages, and between the account and the medical records are the material. Attacking the petitioner personally reads badly and rarely helps.

Where the facts are bad, negotiate. A consent order without findings — where the statute and the court permit one — may preserve the client's position on custody, employment, and immigration far better than a contested loss.

For both. The judge will decide on credibility, and credibility here comes from specificity, consistency, and restraint. A witness who describes a frightening event calmly and precisely is believed. One who characterizes, exaggerates, or argues is not.

Technology, surveillance, and the modern order

Much of what these orders now address did not exist when the statutes were written, and the relief has to be drafted rather than checked off a form.

Location tracking. Air tags and similar trackers hidden in vehicles and bags, phone location sharing left enabled from the relationship, shared map applications, and vehicle telematics accounts registered to the respondent. Request an express prohibition on tracking and an order requiring the respondent to disable and remove any tracking device or service, and advise the client to have the vehicle checked.

Account access. Shared cloud accounts, family plans, password managers, and devices provisioned by the respondent. A respondent who administers the family mobile account can see call and message metadata and can change the client's number. Advise the client to obtain their own account, their own device where feasible, and to change every credential — and to do so from a device the respondent has never controlled.

Smart home devices. Cameras, doorbells, thermostats, and locks controlled by an account the respondent holds. Request an order transferring administrative control or requiring removal.

Stalkerware. Monitoring software installed on a phone or laptop, frequently invisible to a non-expert. A factory reset, with the client restoring nothing from a backup made while the device was compromised, is the reliable remedy.

Social media and third-party contact. Prohibit contact through any platform, through pseudonymous accounts, and through third parties. Address posting about the petitioner, tagging, and disclosing location.

Image-based abuse. Nearly every state now criminalizes non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and the federal civil remedy at 15 U.S.C. § 6851 permits a victim to sue for damages and injunctive relief. The TAKE IT DOWN Act added a federal criminal prohibition and a notice-and-removal obligation for covered platforms, including for AI-generated depictions. Request an express prohibition and preserve the evidence.

Evidence preservation. Advise the client to preserve rather than delete — screenshots with sender, date, and time visible, and the originals retained on the device. Deleting harassing messages destroys the case.

A caution. Advise the client that changing passwords and removing tracking can itself signal to the respondent that they are being addressed, which is a safety consideration. Sequence these steps with the safety plan rather than in isolation.

Where children are involved

Custody provisions in a protective order are temporary, but they establish the arrangement everyone lives with while the family case proceeds, which frequently means for a year or more.

Request custody expressly. Most domestic violence statutes authorize temporary custody and a parenting schedule, and a petitioner who obtains a stay-away order without addressing the children has created an immediate practical problem: the order forbids contact, and the existing custody arrangement requires exchanges.

Address exchanges concretely where contact is permitted. A neutral public location, a third-party intermediary, a supervised visitation center, or curbside exchanges with the parties remaining in their vehicles. Specify who transports each way. Silence here produces violations and confrontations.

Consider supervised visitation where the children witnessed violence or were themselves harmed. Specify the supervisor or the center, the frequency, the duration, and who pays.

Address communication about the children — a co-parenting application creates a record and limits contact to what is necessary, and courts grant this readily.

The presumption. Most states now impose a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody to a perpetrator of domestic violence, with statutory criteria for rebuttal. Findings made in the protective order proceeding trigger it, which is why respondents contest these hearings and why the findings language matters to both sides.

Alienation arguments. A respondent frequently argues that the allegations are fabricated to gain custody advantage. Recent legislation in a number of states, following federal encouragement, restricts courts from discounting evidence of abuse based on unsupported alienation theories and requires evidentiary standards for expert testimony on the subject. Know whether such a provision applies.

Children as witnesses. Almost never. Courts strongly disfavor it, and the alternatives — a guardian ad litem, a forensic interview conducted by a trained professional, or a child advocacy center report — are both better evidence and less harmful.

Coordinate with the family case. The protective order court and the family court are frequently different, and inconsistent orders are a recurring problem. Most states have consolidation or coordination mechanisms; use them, and make sure each court knows what the other has ordered.

Duration. A protective order's custody provision typically yields to a subsequent family court order. Diary the protective order's expiration against the family case's timeline, because a lapse can restore an arrangement nobody intended.

Beyond the domestic context

The same machinery serves situations that have nothing to do with a family relationship, and counsel should know which statute fits.

Civil harassment and stalking orders. For neighbors, coworkers, former friends, online harassers, and strangers. The conduct standard is a course of conduct — usually two or more acts — directed at a specific person, serving no legitimate purpose, that would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress. Single incidents rarely qualify. Speech-based conduct raises First Amendment questions, and orders reaching expression must be narrowly drawn; Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), held that a true-threats prosecution requires proof the speaker was at least reckless as to the threatening nature of the statement, and the reasoning informs civil orders resting on threatening speech.

Workplace violence restraining orders. Available in a number of states on petition by the employer on behalf of an employee who has suffered unlawful violence or a credible threat at the workplace. Useful where an employee is unwilling or unable to petition personally, or where the threat is to multiple employees. The employer must generally give the employee an opportunity to be heard, and the order can cover the worksite and named employees.

Elder and vulnerable adult abuse orders. Reaching physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, isolation, and — importantly — financial exploitation, which most domestic violence statutes do not address. These frequently pair with a conservatorship petition and with the state's vulnerable adult financial abuse statute and its enhanced damages.

School-based orders, protecting a student from another student, available in several states with their own standards.

Extreme risk protection orders, a distinct mechanism permitting law enforcement and, in most enacting states, family members to petition for temporary removal of firearms from a person posing a significant danger. These are not protective orders in the traditional sense — there is no stay-away component — and they are available where no qualifying relationship or course of conduct exists.

Anti-harassment orders against a business or organization, available in a few jurisdictions.

The practical instruction. Identify the correct statute at intake, because filing under the wrong one wastes the hearing and can foreclose an ex parte order. Where more than one fits — an elder abuse order and a domestic violence order between an adult child and a parent, for instance — choose the one with the relief the client actually needs, which is frequently the one nobody defaults to.

Working with advocates and the broader system

Legal representation is one part of a response that works best when coordinated, and lawyers who operate in isolation serve these clients less well.

Domestic violence advocacy organizations provide what a law office cannot: emergency shelter, safety planning, transportation, support during hearings, help completing forms, and continuity after the case ends. Many maintain court-based advocates. Refer at intake, every time, and make the referral warm rather than handing over a phone number.

Understand the confidentiality difference. Communications with a domestic violence advocate are privileged under statute in most states, and the federal VAWA confidentiality provisions at 34 U.S.C. § 12291(b)(2) prohibit funded programs from disclosing personally identifying information without informed, written, reasonably time-limited consent. An advocate who is asked for records will resist, correctly, and counsel should not ask them to breach it.

Law enforcement and prosecution. A civil protective order and a criminal case are separate proceedings with separate standards, and the criminal case is controlled by the prosecutor rather than by the victim. A victim who wishes to drop charges frequently cannot, and prosecutors increasingly proceed on evidence-based cases without victim testimony. Explain this rather than letting the client discover it.

Victim compensation. Every state operates a crime victim compensation program funded in part under 34 U.S.C. § 20102, covering medical and mental health treatment, lost wages, relocation, and in some states property damage and security expenses. Deadlines are short and the application requires a police report in most states. Ask about it; the money is real and it is routinely unclaimed.

Victim advocates in the prosecutor's office, distinct from community advocates, who provide notice of hearings, accompaniment, and input on plea decisions under state victims' rights statutes and the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act at 18 U.S.C. § 3771.

Housing, benefits, and employment. VAWA housing protections, unemployment eligibility for a person who leaves work because of domestic violence in most states, state leave and accommodation laws, and the address confidentiality program.

The limits of what a lawyer provides. An order does not stop someone determined to violate it. What reduces harm is a plan — where to go, who to call, what to carry, how to leave — built with someone who does this work every day. Say that plainly, make the referral, and follow up.

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This guide is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice, and it is not a safety plan. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. Protective order statutes differ substantially by state in who qualifies, what relief is available, how long orders last, and what firearm surrender is required. A protective order carries serious collateral consequences for firearm rights, employment, custody, and immigration status. Both petitioners and respondents should consult qualified counsel, and non-citizens should consult immigration counsel before any hearing.